Grief after Grief and The Sea of Grace 🌊

*A few days ago, I shared something personal on this side of the internet...* My maternal grandmother passed away while I am far, far away from home. Maybe the grief hasn't fully sunk in yet. The first few days while my grandma was having her last final hours, I really was just bracing myself on what's to come. The only thing that was clear back then is the guilt.. the guilt of not being at home. When my brother messaged me that my grandma was being sent from one hospital to another because of her having difficulty breathing, I felt a different tune was being sung than all of her previous hospital visits, especially when she mentioned that *"she didn't want to be admitted anymore, as she was already so tired"* For context, my grandma or *lola* had already been in and out of the hospital for a year now, but the last few months made her considerably weaker. The nearest well-equipped public hospital in my home island is in the city where we lived. So my Lola lived with us for a few months for treatment. I was in QC at that time attempting to retrieve some samples for my case study in one of my subjects. But the rest of the day, I was zoning out every now and then, even while in the middle of a busy week. I asked my aunt and my ma to keep me posted. My looming unease reached its peak when that night, a 7.2-magnitude earthquake hit the island next door, Cebu. The quake could be felt in my hometown where my family was. Social media was bombarded with news if the earthquake, and for a while there was fear. The electricity went out in my hometown shortly, and right after, an unwelcome heavy rain. With all the news about the gargantuan infrastructure scandals by the DPWH of the government, it was not exactly what I would consider a peaceful night. My grandma was in a recently refurbished old public hospital yes. But it was still old, and it was still built by the government. There have already been videos released that night of hospital workers hauling their bedridden patients outside hospital buildings located near the epicenter, so I can't exactly say that my unease was invalid. My grandma survived that night. She was in critical condition that day and was already intubated and connected to a machine to help her breathe. She stayed for another night, most likely to keep my aunt and my mom company. But when the morning came, one of the nurses in her usual rounds discovered that my grandma didn't have a heartbeat anymore. The machine gave the illusion that she was asleep and breathing. That's when they all realized that my grandma passed away in her sleep. There should be a name for this kind of grief. The kind where you just leave things up to the imagination because you weren't there to witness it. I have handled so many different flavors of grief in the past, I've grieved for family dogs and cats, I've grieved for friends, exes, and even complete strangers. I've grieved for a life I wanted but didn't get, and identities I wanted to emulate, but either didn't have the opportunity to or missed the mark. For the most part, I've learned to let the baggage go, and allowed the boundless sea of grace to wash it away, but that doesn't mean the journey was easy. In fact, I'm still in the middle of letting the most recent ones play out. --- # Just this year 2025... we lost our family dog of 10+ years, two of our cats because of an FPV outbreak around our area during rainy season (and nearly my sanity running to and fro the vet clinic to rescue them), and just this month, my maternal lola-- all of them loved till their last days. Such a year huh? I still carry the weight of some of them, and even developed a kind of hypersensitivity brought upon by the anticipated grief of similar circumstances. I know they say that life's temporariness is what makes it worthwhile, but you can't help but be affected by it whether or not you're present in the scene. I wish I was there to hold my ma as she was falling apart watching her own mama die. We've had our fair share of differences, but even so, just the sound of your own mother crying through the phone, really rips your heart into pieces. That happened while I was in the middle of preparing for an experiment in the laboratory. The timing could not have been more perfect as I was in the deep trenches of academia and the looming exams, deadlines and experiments to carry out. I acknowledge my limits and the limits of my circumstances, physical, logistical and financial, that I need to humble myself. That means, no dramatic, movie theater-worthy, impromptu flights back and forth my hometown all while spending a fortune only to be hurried back to uni for a major exam. ---- # There should be a name for this kind of grief... while staring up at the empty ceiling in my dorm room thinking, that I should be there in my grandmother's wake but couldn't. My church family made an effort to visit my ma in my grandma's wake, and a friend of mine made me participate on video call where she mentions how there were so many pictures of me on my grandparents' wall, and how among lola's many grandchildren, but only I wasn't there. that I want to embrace my mom at this time, but couldn't. If I know, she's the eldest of nine siblings too, and the eldest daughter guilt is surely crushing for her. Somehow, it foreshadows what I must carry as well when the time comes. that as much as I want to succumb to the grief, I can't, because I am still in the dark trenches of academia, in a city where I find it difficult to speak the language. I'm surrounded by my college roommates most of the time, and they are a joy, but even I feel the need to hold back because they are much younger than me. I don't want to drag them into concerns they don't have to face yet. that my grandma should not have been passed around from hospital to hospital hours away from each other to be admitted, but couldn't because those two-- the only functional public hospitals in my island-- were over flooded with people, and while needing to be cared for right away, she was placed in one of the ambulance vans where she could rest and be intubated. And then later on, we hear reports of ***ghost health centers***. I know that was her time, and I understand that no amount of effort could have helped her get better, but still... I wish the circumstances were different.  --- # It's Times Like These I Have To Recall Why I Need Grace... not a drop, not a pint, not a gallon, I need an endless sea of it. And that's why in the middle of all the muck, in the middle of trying to airplane mode myself in concerns right in front of me, in the middle of ignoring the heaviness I carry in my chest, or my thoughts of impending doom, I often end up crushed by its weight before I surrender. And when I do, that's where I find myself in the sea of grace. To allow grace to come in is realizing that my dog Butchoy dying earlier this year, had one heck of a life. He survived TVT, blood parasites, several 'almosts' that could have taken his life earlier. _{A Short Collage of Butchoy's Life} ----- Just seeing the empty spaces around the house he used to occupy tugs at my chest. But his absence allowed another rescued soul to be accommodated properly in the family. He got badly hurt by a mauling incident, and his age couldn't help him keep up. We thought he was going to get better like he always did, but he passed away just as I was off to start my first semester of graduate school. He literally just waited until I left. He was that much of a good boy through and through.

When an FPV breakout occurred in the city, taking care of all four infected cats was extremely exhausting (and financially taxing), but witnessing two of these cats seize and die right in my arms almost drove me insane. To allow grace to come in is realizing that the rain which worsened my cats' condition with FPV, also flooded the whole country with truth about the [flood control projects](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flood_control_projects_controversy_in_the_Philippines) and the deeply-entrenched corruption in our government systems, a prayer I and a couple of others have been praying for for a long time. ---- _{The Two Boys We Lost During The FPV Outbreak} ----- So maybe I am just waiting for grace to continue revealing itself in my latest loss. My lola suffered for a really long time, and I'm just thankful that during those times, I got to spend more and more time with her as she got to stay with us, and attend prayer nights with my church. I was truly amazed by the quiet strength she chose to display in the last several months of her life.  I write this as I continue to remember her, honoring her memory, and bringing it with me wherever I go. After all, all her apos are the extension of the amount of love she shared with the world. ----- _{Random Lola Moning Things} -----